Scribes of the Alien Desertion,

The Rightmove advert may prove to be my downfall. One day, I’m going to end up singing the tune Parkbench Blues at an inopportune moment in the office. Whenever I have the song, which begins with the line, ‘Tow me away, I can’t stay, here anymore’, on the car CD player in the morning, I immediately skip it for I do not want to begin the day on a downward trajectory.

Parkbench Blues by Ralfe Band is a great song but dangerously catchy and too well-fitted to my current feelings. I was listening to the Ralfe Band from their earliest radio exposure, which was probably on Mark Radcliffe’s nightly Radio 2 show, just after the departure of the radio legends from Radio 1. The Ralfe Band won’t like me for this but I bought their first album, Swords, for £1 just prior to its release date, in what I still regard as my greatest ever eBay purchase. Often promotional copies of albums end up listed on eBay. I suppose some DJs try to make a few pound from their ignorance or inability to stand up to the playlist clerk. I acquired some discs by this method a long time ago.

Ralfe Band are very distinctive, they trade in a baroque folk sound that is quite playful and macabre. Each tune is wonderfully composed and equipped with attention-grabbing lyrics. Broken Teeth Song is possibly their most emblematic work, its lyrics are very mysterious.

Alongside Parkbench Blues rolls Runaway Pram, this song, by David Cronenburg’s Wife will unlikely feature on any advert due to its explicit content. Equally as unhinged as anything by Ralfe Band, Runaway Pram is hard to forget for days after a listen, and the lines, ‘I no longer hold my finger in the dam because I’m on a runaway pram’ and ‘I used to give a dime, now, I don’t give a damn, because I’m on a runaway pram’ are logged. This ‘runaway pram’ is an appropriate metaphor. 

Custodians Hissing Membership,

Words dominate our world, but only our world. We think in words and it is hard to imagine thinking without words. As a top musicologist, I’m constantly listening to lyrics and trying to vindicate them in the situations which manifest themselves before me. Badly Drawn Boy told me that songs are never quite the answer, just a soundtrack to real life. Where poetry is inspirational, it is often pillaged to insincerity; Rudyard Kipling never expected Mike Bassett.

I think words are my trade, The Bellyaches Massive may disagree. Writing is an art and I see this in my profession. I read reports and I can understand them, and the person after me will understand them too, but that doesn’t imply that author is a good writer. If the message is conveyed, is there a need for elegance?

It’s so long since I worked in an environment where I was comfortable with everything I read. My brain is constantly being jabbed by misshapen paragraphs and ragged sentences. I was asked to check over a report written by a senior member of staff recently; I covered it in red pen, and yet I knew that if I left it alone, its meaning was exactly the same. Maybe this act was unnecessary, but to me, the author didn’t have the gift for writing.

Referring to the ability to write as ‘a gift’ may be overplaying its value, but English is a difficult language and its abuse on certain media platforms is more frequently leading to its misuse in domains of greater importance. To me, ‘the gift’ is the ability to hear what is being written; it’s the ability to punctuate and arrange, to avoid repetition, to lead the reader into believing the author. Vocabulary is over-rated; with the right structure, only common, basic words are needed to communicate stylishly.

Belle & Sebastian recently compiled an album for the Late Night Tales series. At the end, Paul Morley, reads Lost for Words Part 3; I think it sums up how I feel about writing. He reads, ‘the perfect sentence was a hallucination, a blissfully controlled border between order and chaos.’ Faultless writings are, indeed, my dream; and in that dream, I’d possess imagination and use fewer semi-colons.

Bowdlerisers,

I hadn’t heard of the phrase ‘a fish rots from the head first’ - or as it was told to me, via a not incorrect translation, ‘a fish decomposes from the head’ – until the last year. When it was first said to me, I couldn’t quite grasp its use; I didn’t know why we were talking about killing fish or polluting rivers. Lately, talk of this fish has been more frequent and I’m finding listening to it is quite dangerous.

This is not a proverb that I particularly like. Usually, I try to reason with them and reason where I would fit in. For instance, a discussion about pointless and repetitive work brought out the phrase, ‘we are like hamsters running on a wheel’. My reply was ‘that may be the case but I’m the man walking past the pet shop who is not interested in buying any pets.’

As for this fish, I could be the gills that keep the head alive, I could be an idle fisherman messing about on the river or I could be a kingfisher (the most striking bird that’s just not large enough to catch a pike). Alternatively, I could stop talking to these fish-obsessed malcontents.

Storers of Raucity or Moronity,

I referred to a ‘Bad Day’ in an earlier post. I was sick with embarrassment. One of our team members was told to organise a training course for the whole department; they were to invite an instructor from the industry-leading company for a full day of instruction and demonstration on a particularly contentious analytical technique within the department. I had limited involvement in the organisation of the whole affair; I was looking forward to being a stewdent for the day. My only role was to remind the organising party to make the necessary arrangements (room bookings, overhead projector etc); after this seemed to be ignored, another colleague pointed out that I was not appointed as the co-ordinator and that I should step back. I did so and it seemed that I had complied with the proverb to ‘give someone enough rope’. The day comprised of a farcical sequence of events, the instructor was so informative, lovely and kind and we treated her appallingly. I think this day will stay with me forever, and in some ways, I see it as a landmark.

From the outside, the series of incidents that occurred on this day may seem trivial but I will take some time to recover from it. The events of Thursday did help, I arrived home from work and I had planned to do some writing at the computer, watch the football on the television, eat crisps and peanuts, and drink tea. I did a little surfing and I discovered Slow Club were in town that evening. I had bought a ticket for this but had mixed up the dates. I got myself in gear and headed for The Lemon Tree.

Unfortunately, I missed the support acts of Charlie Buchan and Michelle Stoddart, one because I left too late and the other, because I was doing silly three-point turns in side streets whilst looking for somewhere to park. I was in no way an aficionado of Slow Club before the show; in my experience, Marc Riley played them and I didn’t find them disagreeable. I owe them an apology.

As they opened with Where I’m Waking and I found they were something special. Charles plays guitar and sings. Rebecca drums and sings. They were joined by Evvan on drums and Steve on bass guitar. They make lovely pop music and it was a great evening. When every song seems like a single, it’s clear that the band has found a winning formulation. Double drumming is a valuable idiosyncrasy. The venue seemed two thirds full on the evening, it made for a comfortable listening experience although the band deserved more. After a polite start, the crowd sparked into action for If We’re Still Alive, and they were appreciative throughout. The band ended the set with Two Cousins but they came back for an encore featuring an actual ‘big fat sax solo’. There was no saxophone until that point so it was a joyous surprise when Steve planted himself amongst the depths of the crowd and began to play. The final song was the delightfully rambunctious Giving Up on Love, I tore down a promo poster for my fridge and followed the crowd into the street. One reviewer was heard to say ‘That was great, way better than the Maccabees, the Maccabees were s#@t!’.

Bolts on Dolorous Days,

The other day I reached for my Steve Pac-a-mac 'Bad Day' song. Sometimes, I feel guilty about listening to my 'Good Day' song if it's not a been a good day; this is a hazard of living life by the teachings of quality music radio. I could live life by the ways of Just a Minute, however, I deviate.

Steve Lurpak on 6music has a feature whereby lisheners nominate two songs, one appropriate for a good day and one a bad day. The 'Good Day' is generally the lishener's favourite song, however, there are two ways to choose a 'Bad Day' song: the song may be morose and aid wallowing or the song may be joyous and help to uplift.

My 'Good Day' is Seven Seas by Echo and the Bunnymen. It's not my favourite song ever but the lyric 'Seven seas, swimming them so well' makes it a simple choice for me.

My 'Bad Day' is I Don't Know Where to Begin by Pictish Trail. As an album track, it's a little harder to track down for free but it's not beyond the typical surfer. A bad day, by my definition, consists of a series of needless incidents resulting in hopeless woes. The other day a collection of calamities made me sick with embarassment. The title of the song said it all.

Enervating Disciples Adrift,

The training course should be a little respite from the everyday foraging through the factory. I found otherwise when I was sent on a batch of these with my colleagues. I was asked to ensure that they all behaved and passed the courses and I was to look after the instructors. There were no recognised awards at the end, only minor tests to prove that the attendees had paid some level of attention.

On the day of the first of these courses, it was already chaos by the start of my shift. Some people claimed that they were attending the course when, in fact, they had not registered their need to attend. Of course, I will never block anyone from learning so I am immediately placed in a situation of apologising to the trainer for oversubscribing to the course. As well as having the people who aren’t supposed to turn up, the opposite occurs; I also have to round up people who are on the list. The late start caused me to be apologising again.

The course begins and the trainer asks questions as he goes. The first question lingers, I wait to see if the others will volunteer an answer. To break the silence, I answer. The next question arrives and every set of eyes in the room is on me; it’s clear that I have become their leader. I took a stance and announced, ‘I am answering no more questions, you all know the answers.’ I apologised to the trainer at the interval but I had to provoke their involvement somehow. There was a basic test at the end and, by hook or by crook, they all managed to pass.

The next day, we start again with a different trainer. I collect him from reception and he asks me about my background on the way back to the training room, I briefly tell him about my university, my last and my current jobs. He sets up and I gather my intrepid band of scholars. He goes around the room and makes everyone introduce themselves then he announces that I should be giving the course instead. The war between us begins. As the day before, we go through the awkward stage of no one offering answers. We break off early for a tea break and I suggest to him that he may fare better if he directs questions to individuals by name. This idea seemed great to him and he began as I suggested, only he repeatedly called our most junior and least confident group member by the wrong name, patting him on the shoulder and giving him a shake to prompt responses.

Having achieved lines of communication between the group, the meeting becomes something of a doctor’s surgery. They poured out all their gruesome ailments supposedly encountered through work and I wondered how long it would be until we were shut down. If these were real problems, I couldn’t understand why they weren’t reported before and why they had to be reported to a trainer who was neither a doctor nor a scientist, but I couldn’t help laughing when I recounted the whole event later. Ashamedly, I broke down in hysterics in my manager’s office.
The trainer breaks them into pairs for his first group exercise. I go back to duelling with him, he refuses to let me become part of any group and says that I am to oversee all the groups. I accept this could have been a compliment and is, on the face of it, perhaps a wise instruction but in a room so small, I could barely leave my seat. Somehow, I am edged towards the corner of the room and closer to the door.

For some reason, despite the activity being much the same, the next exercise requires groups of three or four and I am welcomed back into the fold. I end up teamed with our most junior and most stubborn team members. Previous experience told me that one person would want all of their ideas to represent the entire group’s ideas. Hoping to build the confidence of one and derail the other’s onslaught of dictation, I created a noisy argument and a complete stalemate so we reported back nothing at the end. I think I learned something; it is all very well to cajole novice members of a team but not to the expense of the task at hand. Luckily, this was not a real-life situation, because in reality, I’d have gone it alone, because the bottom line is that to do something right, I have to apply my own imitable standards.

We are then given a short test to confirm that we took part in the training course and to earn the certificate. I finish quickly, I sit and watch the others struggle. I decide to break the silence and try to prompt the others. Of course, this is against exam etiquette under normal circumstances but the trainer lets me do so, I am smart about my words and I give no answers away. In fact, the trainer follows my lead and they all pass the test.

The following week, our health and safety training was resumed with another course on manual handling. Fortunately, the trainer was much more engaging but I was accompanied by extra staff to see through the course. I didn’t think I’d have to give my ‘the instructor is not a doctor’ speech again but, clearly, I should have done for those who were not in attendance first time around. One of my flock asked the instructor about problems induced by an old kickboxing injury, this led on to a detailed discussion about swimming pools and the best stroke. The course turned out to be quite informative and the instructor suggested a number of improvements to our everyday practice. These suggestions had far wider-reaching consequences.

Assayers of a Lambent Break,

I was lucky. I finished learning and I left. I didn’t discover the formula for finding employment after a PhD. The problem is that employers cannot afford to have a distracted employee. It’s a risk to hire someone who is ‘writing up’ or even someone who has ‘just submitted’. A pre-arranged appointment may be possible but no one can be certain when it can be fulfilled. Everyone has to go somewhere; graduate schemes seem to be aimed at undergraduates; positions in the open market require experience, so the PhD finisher is stuck.

I was gobbled up by a company who misguidedly decided to take advantage of the excess of PhD graduates in the market. Their policy, if followed through, would have seen them fill every position, from the top to the bottom, with a doctor – and they’d all be on temporary ongoing contracts.

There was an initial honeymoon period, I was trained, I learned and I was promised that I would be allowed to expand the current portfolio of the position – I would be allowed to study and experiment.

I started alongside another graduate, and after a few months, we were joined by another and installed in a 24 hour shift system – round-the-clock development. I was deemed most competent of the three and the first to work the nightshift. There is no sufficient preparation for the nightshift. I am ‘a morning person’. On the first night, before midnight, my body was in shock. Hot and cold, hot and cold – my body’s way of saying ‘I’m usually somewhere else.’ I experienced this at the start of every nightshift week. Unlike many nightshift workers, I could go home and sleep, however, I couldn’t eat. I only really wanted to eat cereal and ice blocks. I managed to play football of the evenings before work but I felt as if I was playing with only 75 % lung capacity. The worst part was always the re-adjustment, I couldn’t sleep on the evening of the first weekend day, and as a result, I was so tired that my second weekend day was ruined.

I knew that I was never going to stay. I wanted to think, I didn’t like completing jobs without engaging in them. I knew that I wasn’t working at full capacity, nor could I, in my upside-down world. I would be given projects whilst on dayshift and I wouldn’t be able to resume them until I was on dayshift again; any research or focus was lost in the interim blur of nightshift and backshift.

My heart was always too good. Sometimes others didn’t match my application. Most of the time, I was exploited. I didn’t mind, I liked to be busy and I enjoyed doing a good job. I always cared. I never complained. I did what I was asked to, I did it well then I went back and asked what I could do next. I thought ahead. I tidied up. I was professional despite the fact that I was never fully immersed in the work. I felt as if I was liked in every department across the site. I was genial. Management were impressed, I knew that they thought highly of me, but they it was never rewarded with the security of a contract, improved shift or a more challenging role.

I applied for jobs every day, I rarely missed a relevant advert. After 6 months in the job, I attended my first interview; it turned out that the job was outside my field, but it signalled a change in fortunes. After this, the offers of interviews started to come in. I believe that I must have crashed through some time barrier; perhaps a suitable length of time since leaving university or a reasonable number of months experience had been attained. My interview technique improved after attending a couple. I was actually offered a job, but I declined on the basis of the working conditions.

One of my 2 colleagues was offered the same position I turned down and he left, I was happy. I thought this would rattle management a bit and perhaps persuade them to improve our contract situation. I was wrong; this would only lead to more erratic shift patterns. Around this time, rumour arrived that I was to expect to be offered a contract after the Christmas holidays. This news didn’t change my resolve to leave.

I became a bit of a joke at work; a haircut and a shaved face would always indicate an interview. I built my hopes up when I had two interviews in one week, I thought I was departing. When I had three interviews in one week and still I remained, I was devastated. The phone kept ringing, agencies swarmed over me. They wanted to send me far afield, so I knew I had to do this by myself. The interviews helped me expand my knowledge, I had a boss who had others in awe – he was able to say something about any subject. I was a little sceptical, such understanding might be superficial and picked up from travels through industry – I was now collecting that type of experience; at the very least, I have become aware of the standards of others.

One of the most common interview techniques for employers seems to be to downplay the role on offer and attempt to talk the candidate into wilting and admitting that they might not want the post so much. They can be persistent to the point where they ask no other questions; the only way to combat this is to be resolute and not show weakness. This occurred during the interview for the position I eventually decided to take up; I suppose by this time, I knew nothing could ever be as bad as where I was.

On one occasion, I attended an interview for a company that worked in a similar field to the company I was trying to escape. The interview was simple, I marched through the technical questions with style and I fielded the other questions with ease. I left knowing that I had performed well but I was open-minded as to whether I’d be offered the job, I was ‘waiting to see’. Next day at work, I told my colleagues at work what had happened at the interview, they said, ‘That’s it, you’re off, the job’s yours.’ As the day wore on, I began to believe them; I had gone from nonchalant and patient to expectant. I called the company to ask if I had been successful, and I was told that, ‘Your current job seems so similar to this one that you might want to leave us too so we have offered the position to another candidate.’ I was taken aback; this was something new to consider. I was confounded; I had been laid back about the outcome until my colleagues convinced me that the job was mine; they built my hopes.

One rejection was quite lovely. I applied for a temporary role at a company where I had completed a work placement. I was greeted by a former colleague at reception and interviewed by a former manager. They had brought out some of my old reports and it seemed like an informal meeting of old pals. The manager asked what I had been doing since the end of my placement and then he held up the reports, ‘These tell me that you can do this job and you’d be good at it, but I can make no promises about what would happen at the end of the contract.’ That was when he did me a favour, I consoled myself with my interpretation of what he was saying ‘We don’t want to make you unemployed but we’d probably have to.’ and I believe that rejection was a friendly act.

Around a month before I finally left the job that had made me miserable, I said to my colleagues that I felt very close to leaving, I had no interviews on the horizon at the time but instinct told me that my departure was near. The next interview would be the one. I was positive. My daily applications went on, and then there was one where the company’s HR department personally thanked me for my application almost immediately. They then allowed me to choose my own interview time. There was no structure to the interview, there were no questions. I travelled, the job was described to me, in its gory detail, and then I went home. I felt that I’d be offered the job. A few days later, they invited me for a second interview, the same events took place, except, on this occasion, they discussed the possibility of a more senior role than the one I had applied for. I waited a few days, and then, they called me to offer me the job. I accepted in principle and I was told not to resign until I had signed the contract. After a nearly a year of misery, the time between agreeing to take up this new post and actually being able to resign seemed the longest. Contractually, I didn’t have to work a notice period so I knew that I could drop a bombshell. I handed in a letter of resignation calling the day after ‘my last day’. After just over a year, my misery ended, I wandered off to a company that really wanted to use my talents.

Augmenters of a Vascular Price,

Once again, the great and the good of the music industry gathered to discover who has won the prestigious Bellyaches Music Award. This year’s ceremony was held at the Bervie Chipper and presented by Eldred Bowman.

The nominees mumbled indifferently at their tables as the albums were listed.

Diamond Mine by King Creosote & Jon Hopkins: As First Watch flows into John Taylor’s Month Away, Anderson and Hopkins have already set the World Record for Wistfulness. The recording from the chip shop featuring the reply to a request for a receipt; ‘It’s just a written one.’ is particularly quaint and it illustrates the making-do that can is symptomatic of most of our lives, whilst ‘I’d rather be me’ in reference to John Taylor’s trip to sea is humbling. The minimalistic keys towards the end of Bubble are a simple delight.

Cadenza by Dutch Uncles: Those Dutch Uncles are always building. Cadenza is what I consider prog-rock, the constant beats and changing time signatures indicate a progression and a march into the future. The magic is in its assembly, to hear the album is to want to help build and move forward too.

Man Alive by Everything Everything: Man Alive demands similar admiration to Cadenza, the use of guitars, keys and percussion, to execute very complicated rhythms is very special. Suffragette Suffragette and Photoshop Handsome are smart singles. Nasa is on Your Side is perhaps the gem of the album, it perhaps represents the essence of the album.

Losing Sleep by Edwyn Collins: Losing Sleep is a perfect slice of pop. Edwyn Collins has written some great lyrics and the range of collaborations is a treat. The album has pace but also poignancy, it’s an aural feast.

Boots Met My Face by Admiral Fallow: Boots Met My Face is charming. Delicate arrangements of flute, clarinet, double bass and all the other gubbins percolate through such honest and heartfelt lyrics. Admiral Fallow have an ear for a lyrical rhyme; they indulge and invite identification from their audience.

One Thousand Pictures by Pete & The Pirates: One Thousand Pictures features the best opening lyric of the year; ‘Something you fear has just come to town’. The album is littered with catchy lines and bouncy tunes. One Thousand Pictures is consistently fun and difficult to ignore.

Write About Love by Belle & Sebastian: Belle & Sebastian returned with Write About Love, they’re known for lovely orchestral indie pop but on Write About Love, they’ve embossed their influences more blatantly over each track and as a result, the album has a real classic feel.

Ornaments From the Silver Arcade by Young Knives: It’s only after attending a Young Knives concert that it becomes apparent, from the hits they omit, how many great pop songs they’ve written. I Love My Name is a punchy and catchy opening, it’s a theme continued throughout. ‘Call off the rest of the years, I’ve nothing to say, so I’ll say nothing here’ makes a great chorus is Vision in Rags.

Bubblegum by Clinic: Bubblegum marks a slight change for Clinic, it envelopes its listener is a warm, wondrous, wooziness. The album is endearing in its laidback electronic wistfulness.

Everything’s Getting Older by Bill Wells & Aidan Moffat: Aidan Moffat evokes such sorrow and pity for the characters he sings from by the marvellous detail he incorporates into his lyrics. Bill Wells helps to create a beautiful soundscape in which the mournful reflection is set.

The Impossible Song & Other Songs by Roddy Woomble: Roddy Woomble is one of Scotland’s finest lyricists and best voices. The Impossible Song & Other Songs is perhaps a celebration of an older way of life, but the morals and ethics of songs like ‘Work Like You Can’ are as relevant today as they ever have been.

Rolling Blackouts by The Go! Team: The Go! Team are famed for making a right racket but on Rolling Blackouts, they’ve re-wired slightly and created some lovely pop songs. Rolling Blackouts is an album that has committed the sunshine of the day and the neon lights of the night to record.

The others deposited their wrappers in the bin and taunted the seagulls as Tom from Pete & The Pirates collected the prize from special guest, Montrose FC manager, Ray Farningham.